herumtreiber

Title: Hallowed Moon
Chapter: The vision
Author:

herumtreiber
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Edward/Jacob
Other Characters: Alice, Carlisle, Bella, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, Billy Black, Embry, Quil, Seth, Aro, Caius, Marcus, Jane, Alec, Demetri.
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~5,500
Summary: Alice has a strange vision. Edward's feelings about Jacob surface when he observes it. Is Carlisle's interpretation the correct one? Jacob and Edward embark on a journey that will take them to Tuscany, to face the Volturi and their growing feelings for each other as the very fabric of the world crumbles around them.
Disclaimer: All Twilight characters herein are the property of Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: The story takes place after New Moon. This was one of my entries for the

twilightbigbang

Table of contents

Chapter one: The vision

EPOV

My fingers glided on the white and black keys of the piano. Chopin's Etude in E major felt right for this moment but it failed to liberate me. It didn't make me forget what I was; I couldn't pretend there wasn't a hole in my soul. I shook my head, trying in vain to submerge myself in the music.

There was a soft knock on the door. For a human it would have been imperceptible amid the notes of the piano, but I heard it distinctly. Besides, the mental images assaulting my mind could only come from one source.

"Come in, Alice."

My sister softly opened the door and walked inside with her usual gliding grace. I turned to look at her, noting she was wearing a blouse with a clerical collar over her red slacks. Alice's pixie hair was as carefully ruffled as always. Her ethereal face reflected the dim light coming from the half-opened window.

"I notice you're in a pensive mood, Edward." Alice put her cold hand on my shoulder, her touch light as a butterfly.

I pressed the A-major key, its jarring sound startling my sister. After closing the lid of the piano I stood up, ruffling my hair with my left hand.

"How did you know, Alice?" I walked towards the windowpane, looking outside at the tall birches and oaks surrounding our house in Forks. It always struck me as weird that the serene view contrasted so sharply with our frenzied lives inside - if the doings of a soulless vampire could be construed as a life, which I doubted.

"It's easy," Alice walked up to the piano and rubbed her thumb over the shiny wooden surface. "You always play Chopin when you're moody."

I turned to look at her, smirking. "It isn't always true, Alice. Most times I play Debussy."

"Whatever. You forget I can glimpse the future. I'm privy to certain information that--"

I held up my hands, interrupting her. "You had a vision?"

Alice took a deep breath, something very unnecessary for the likes of us. Yet it told me how seriously she considered the question. Breathing out with deliberation, she plunged resolutely ahead. "You could say that, stubborn brother of mine."

I walked toward her and held her shoulder in a tight grip. One of the luxuries of dealing with my siblings was that I didn't have to measure my force. Alice could take whatever I gave her, unlike my fiancée.

"Please tell me it doesn't have to deal with Bella." If my voice had a whiny tone, neither Alice nor I commented on it.

She lifted her hand, touching my cheek with a soft touch as if preparing me for what she had to say, and my worries grew despite her next words. "It has to do with her, but don't worry, Edward. She's ok in my vision."

Her words only troubled me more and I had to sit down on the piano bench. It wasn't like Alice to dance around the subject. She usually talked my ears off.

I looked up at her, raising my eyebrow inquiringly.

"I've been watching her, just as you told me to."

I nodded. After the scare when Alice told me Bella had died of despair, jumping off that cliff, I'd asked my sister to keep an eye on her. I'd cheated when I manipulated Bella. I popped the marriage question to her during graduation when she felt especially happy. I wanted to ensure that our courtship would not endanger her life.

And the Volturi. I could not forget how predatorily Aro had watched my fiancée. How the leader of the vampires insisted I had to turn my Bella.

The truth was that perils seemed to reach beyond the ocean, menacing the mortal girl's life. As if there weren't enough predators in her life already; as if she wasn't friends with the shapeshifters, the Quileute boys that could become enraged in a second and kill her or maim her, disfiguring her exquisite face.

"Edward, Bella disappeared from my visions."

I was startled and gripped Alice's shoulder too tightly, even for a vampire. She grimaced in pain. Instantly I released her, shrugging in apology.

Alice toyed with the hem of her blouse, apparently pondering how to tell me what she saw. She looked up at me, her amber eyes squinting as if recalling her vision.

Finally she continued, "Don't worry, she reappeared later. But she wasn't in Forks."

She raised her hand to touch my lips, forestalling my questions. "I could tell by the arid scenery that she was in the south, probably in Arizona or New Mexico. There was a stucco wall. Maybe a Spanish colonial house?"

"Was she safe?" I couldn't keep the tremor from my voice. If Bella was in one of those inaccessible places - where the unmerciful sun would betray me instantly - then I couldn't protect her.

"Bella was safe, Edward. She was also with another man." Alice's voice grew quieter; she finished in an inaudible whisper that I could easily hear with my sharp, accursed senses. "They were kissing. In fact, the man was groping her."

I growled in fury at the thought of someone else touching the girl I wanted to marry. I felt like ripping something. If I'd been in my room I would've started throwing around my books and CDs, destroying the shelves and releasing my anger in the inanimate objects. An enraged vampire is dangerous to himself and whatever mortal he might encounter.

"Bella seemed to enjoy it," continued Alice in a louder voice. My sister appeared to make up her mind about something; her thoughts, which had been murky, suddenly acquired a sharp edge.

Reading her mind, I frowned. I was very confused by her train of thought. "What's the goddamned mutt had to do with it, Alice?"

"The thing is, Bella disappeared from my visions for like… one hour?"

I nodded, figuring that Alice thought Bella was spending time with the dog. She hadn't been alarmed enough to notify me.

"While Bella was absent, I searched for her. Haven't told you this, Edward, but sometimes when I have visions there are three or more. They are all indistinct, as if they were, I don't know… ghosts? Like in the television sets... you remember the shows in the Fifties?"

I nodded, recalling distinctly the old TV set Carlisle bought when they first came out. Or rather when the weak signal could be received even in Alaska, where we were staying at the time. Sometimes there were two or more images, kind of superimposed on each other that made viewing difficult. Alice should have known that I had pried in her mind and was well acquainted with the phenomenon she spoke of. That fuzziness to her visions was so intense that sometimes I got a ghost headache from delving into her mind, so I'd decided to tread cautiously when I read Alice's thoughts.

"Anyway, suddenly I could dimly see the dog Bella hangs out with, what's his name? Jacob Black." Alice walked to the bench chair and sat down, touching softly the cover. She idly lifted it and fingered the ebony and ivory keys as if trying to collect her thoughts.

"What happened then?" I was very worried because this portended no good. I wanted nothing to do with the mutt. If Alice could suddenly sense him, it could only mean that he had lost his muttness, his shapeshifting qualities. That would make him a formidable enemy in our fight for Bella.

"The vision suddenly became quite clear, but I still saw Jacob," said Alice as if measuring the name in her tongue. I thought it was the first time I heard her say it - usually she just called him 'dog.'

I paced back and forth, willing for her to continue. Alice, who usually was so direct, took her sweet time telling her story. I knew that I had to let her tell it like she wanted. I could not just pry the information out her head because her interpretations were often the meat of her visions.

"Let me backtrack for a second." Alice frowned, taking a deep, unneeded breath as she recalled her vision.

"When the mutt appeared, it was like there were three different scenarios," continued my sister. "To go on with the TV analogy, they were like different shows. I was so startled that I could see Jacob, at first I didn't notice where he was."

"Why do you call him that, Alice? You usually just say 'the dog'. Has he lost his stupid powers?"

Alice waved her hand in the air, dismissing my concerns as silly. At least her mind formed that thought while she pondered her words.

I growled, wishing for her to finish explaining.

"Doesn't matter now, Edward. What's important is this: in two of the visions the dog was here in Forks, in an old house with peeling paint. Haven't seen where he lives on the Reservation, but it must have been there because I also saw Chief Swan."

"Bella's father was with him? I think the Chief is friends with Billy Black, so that's not surprising." I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but I wasn't fooling Alice.

"That's what told me he was in Forks. I know the Chief and he hasn't traveled far. But those images disappeared just when I was concentrating in the vision." Alice closed her eyes for a second. I knew that was a subtle invitation to probe her mind; therefore I dived into her thoughts.

Indeed, it seemed like Black's house from Bella's description. She spent too much time there for my liking. There was a decrepit TV and Chief Swan was talking with Jacob, but there seemed to be two of them, wavering in and out of the vision just like the TV ghosts Alice spoke of.

There was a certain grainy quality to it. Indeed it felt as if it was an old TV show and the commercials for an old Cadillac would just appear; the presenter would jump out from behind the ratty couch and point towards the table and a shiny white car would pop up into the domestic scene.

Alice's words jarred me, yanking me out from her thoughts and into the reality of the situation.

"The third scene coalesced then, but it shifted and I knew Jacob wasn't in Forks. I realized he wasn't in America at all." Alice's voice descended in pitch.

"Where was he?"

"First I noticed the marble floor, then the streaming light from the colored windowpanes. Next I saw the buttressed arches above Jacob." Alice rubbed her forehead, touching distractedly a curl of her hair.

I felt anxiety and if I had been a mortal man, I was sure that I'd felt a cold hand wrap around my unbeating heart, for I realized I knew well the place Alice was describing.

"Black was with the Volturi." Hearing my raspy voice, I hardly recognized it, bereft of the usual sensual timbre.

Alice nodded her assent. "Aro was there, so was Caius. The blond Volturi was snarling at Jacob. He was seated on his throne, just like when we were there."

I noticed she'd left out a name of the triumvirate of vampires that ruled our world. "What about Marcus?"

Alice wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold - an impossibility for us whose skin is as cold as the marble that decorates the ornate catacombs where the Volturi hold their councils and revels.

"Didn't see Marcus at first." Alice stood up from the bench and walked towards me, her face scrunched up in confusion. "That was because he was just behind Jacob. It was strange, he was smiling at the dog."

"And the vision ended?" There was a tentative quality to my voice which I didn't like because it betrayed - even if unconsciously -my preoccupation with the mutt, my rival for Bella's affection. Though I felt sure she would never choose him over me.

"No, it got worse." Alice put her hand on my shoulder and leaned towards me. "I don't think I can tell you this, Edward. You have to see for yourself."

I closed my eyes. Leaving our house behind, I dived into Alice's mind.

I saw the mutt. He wore one of those black tight jeans that he liked to prance around in, and a black T-shirt. I couldn't help but notice his slim waist, broadening to his massive shoulders. I couldn't hear what he said but his posture was aggressive as he faced Marcus.

Black's unblemished russet-colored skin glistened with sweat. Trapped in Alice's vision, my feelings for the mutt appeared to change. I sensed a yearning to touch Black, to ruffle his short hair, dark as his name. I wondered how strong this prophetic scene was that it could change my perception of Jacob.

His muscles twitched. It seemed as if the handsome mutt was ready to make his escape from the lair of the Volturi, something I knew was impossible. I tried to edge away from the vision, sensing a perceptible change in my feelings towards the dog but it was useless. The vision gripped me like a mental steel vise.

I was forced to endure what followed. Marcus shook his head, his noble face sad as always. Aro, who was seated on the middle throne, gazed at one of the Volturi guards.

In the vision, I didn't have to turn to see Demetri, standing next to Jane. The petite blonde vampire appeared to be sad for a change, ruby-red eyes looking warily at the pretty mutt. Jane seemed to disagree with the decision of the vampire leader but as always, her first allegiance would be towards Aro.

Demetri rushed towards the mutt and I couldn't help but cry out in distress at what I imagined would happen. I didn't know if it was the in present or the future, I just shouted, "Watch out, Jake!"

Jacob crouched and instantly transformed. The enormous, magnificent russet-colored wolf appeared immense, facing the assembled Volturi. But I knew it was quite the contrary, the seemingly frail vampires could destroy the shapeshifter in a few seconds. I trembled when I imagined the dog dying. There was a place in my mind that could not conceive of a life without Jacob Black, the infuriating Quileute that defied me and challenged me constantly, the only one that was immune to my vampire allure and charm.

In the telescopic time of the vision, I had time enough to picture Jacob as he was the time he faced me in the parking lot at Forks High. There was boldness, a masculine vitality unique to the mutt's demeanor that I couldn't help but admire and envy. At times I feared Bella would sense this and choose him over me, but she always succumbed to my hypnotic charm, as I knew she would.

Jacob never did, he always stood proud and defiant, the very definition of the Quileutes. A mighty descendant of the tribe Carlisle signed the pact with. The people that adhered scrupulously to its strictures generation after generation, even though their every instinct urged them to fight us to the death.

It would hurt me unbearably to see that handsome face lifeless, to know that the irrepressible grin that was never directed towards me would stop gracing Jake's face.

It seemed that my feelings about Jacob Black ran deeper than I thought.

Trapped in the relentless vision, I was forced to face what I had long sought to suppress, what my mortal upbringing in Illinois in the 1910's bitterly condemned. The long decades spent hiding from mortals and listening to their prejudices made me repress what I truly felt, a keen desire for the wolf. All the passion exchanged during our snarling fights, it was a deflection of the forbidden feelings I'd fought against for so long. Attitudes that were increasingly accepted by society but had been stamped, imprinted upon me from earliest childhood.

I desired the wolf. I yearned to dominate the man, to be dominated by him. I wanted that chiseled visage to look at me with something other than contempt. The tall Quileute, the fitting warrior for his tribe.

I watched the wolf face the pale vampires, Jacob snarled as Demetri grabbed his furred neck. He reared back, silently howling in Alice's weird vision.

The strangest thing was yet to come. Before Demetri could destroy the shapeshifter, the doors to the Volturi chamber were thrown open. The pale Volturi paused and looked at the open entrance with an astounded expression, a stark contrast to his usual calm mien.

A black blur approached the fighting pair, and I was astonished to see it was me who apparently rushed to help my rival.

I saw my face, pale as marble, twisted in a grimace of hate and anger that wasn't directed at the shapeshifter, rather at Demetri and the other Volturi guards.

The wolf looked at me in the vision and lifted his muzzle, distracting Demetri so I - or rather the future me - could grab the vampire's arm, twisting it away from Jacob so violently it appeared to crack.

I didn't have time to see anything else because the vision disappeared. I was yanked to the present with an odd feeling of disorientation. This time Alice's premonition had been so strong that I asked myself whether it was more than that. Maybe her powers were developing so strongly that she could submerge herself in her visions in such a way that it became real, if only for the short time it lasted.

Alice grabbed my arm and touched my face with her left hand. Her cool palm managed to soothe me, to convince me that I was back in the present, that her vision remained only a possibility. That Jacob Black did not have to die at the hands of the Volturi.

"You see why I'm so concerned, Edward?" Alice's voice betrayed her nervousness; it lacked its usual warm tone.

"What happens next in your premonition?" I shuffled with an unsteady gait to the window, peering at the verdant forest outside, mulling what the vision what revealed both about Jacob's situation and my true feelings for the mutt.

"It ended right when you broke Demetri's arm."

Alice stepped towards me, stopping when she reached the shelf filled with musical scores. My sister picked one at random, ruffling it nervously. She seemed to study it intently but her mind was far away. I smirked when I saw she had picked up the score for the Mozart piece I wanted to arrange for Bella as a birthday gift, a Divertimento.

"And the mutt?" I couldn't help but shiver when I remembered the indomitable wolf snarling defiantly, facing alone the Volturi guards. I could not leave the shapeshifter to fight on his own the invincible Volterra vampires. In my mind, I started planning how I would convince my family so we could protect the stubborn mutt.

"Jacob is still in my visions. The last one I had? Turns out the mutt likes to watch American Idol. Who would've thought?" Alice's levity was welcomed and I sneered, thinking of the Quileute trying to explain his musical tastes to Bella, though probably she watched it too.

Suddenly Alice clapped her hands, apparently satisfied with having thrown my world upside down. Leaving me no time to question her further, she said, "Have to go now. I convinced Bella to go shopping in Seattle. There's a new boutique that has all the latest from the McQueen Fall collection."

Before I could protest, my troublesome sister slipped away, closing the door softly - leaving me embroiled in doubt.

oOoOo

"I'm worried, son. You and Alice seemed very distraught today." Carlisle's handsome face reflected his concern. I'd spent the rest of the day closeted in the music room. I tried to play but nothing seemed to fit, to lift me away from the claustrophobic sense of doom that encapsulated me since Alice showed me her vision.

Neither Brahms nor Prokofiev did the trick. When I tried an old jazz piece I'd heard in the Oregon of the Sixties, I just couldn't concentrate enough to perform it properly. In my growing restlessness I'd even considered playing an old country music ditty I'd heard on the radio, but my innate dislike for that genre prevailed.

I crossed my arms behind my neck, reclining on the plushy chair in front of Carlisle's desk.

"I had a revelation of sorts today, father."

After Carlisle nodded, leaning back on his leather chair, I proceeded to relate Alice's vision. I spared nothing, telling my father about the feelings the vision had awakened in me, or rather the submerged tendencies that had come to light in the stress of the future.

Talking with Carlisle was always a treat for me because his demeanor, his understanding and compassionate face assured me that I would be fully heard. I wondered at the injustice of the world that such a marvelous man would be condemned - like all of us vampires - to a life of eternal temptation.

Carlisle frowned when I told him about the Volturi, especially when I mentioned Caius.

"You have no idea what Caius said, son?"

I shook my head, too caught up in the telling of the tale to venture a guess.

"Edward, you have to remember Caius' special gift." Carlisle took out a black pen from his shirt and toyed with it. "Or should I say, his curse. I think he was analyzing, sensing Jacob's aura to determine if he was mated. Maybe he thought his mate was Bella."

I growled unconsciously at the thought of the mutt and Bella being mates. Would the wolf imprint on her in the future? With a start, I realized I was jealous - not of Jacob, but of Bella.

I just couldn't picture her with the handsome mutt, the shapeshifter I was sure I hated until the relentless vision made me realize otherwise.

I plodded on, doggedly telling Carlisle about the vision. I didn't spare my feelings, speaking with the candor I knew my father appreciated. I was sure I would have blushed, had I been still human, when I told him about my growing realization, my ambivalent feelings toward Jacob Black.

Carlisle just nodded sagely, venturing a question at the right moment to better gauge my feelings. I knew that he, who had lived through such turmoil through the centuries, surely had witnessed worse behavior. Besides, Carlisle had lived with the Volturi; he knew intimately the modus operandi of the Etruscan vampires.

"Let me clarify, Edward. You say Aro didn't try to stop Demetri?"

I nodded. "Aro had that maniacal glint in his eyes, you know?"

Carlisle replied in his soothing voice, "I'm well acquainted with that, son."

"He appeared uninterested, as if it wasn't his concern. Carlisle, I must admit I was rather interested in… Jacob."

I lowered my gaze to the desk, evading the penetrating stare of my father. I just couldn't quite grasp how a minute shift in my feelings for the mutt had opened this vast chasm of inchoate feelings. Things I had long repressed and thought forgotten seemed to rise from the bottom of my dead heart; what I had sought to forget when I courted Bella.

I rushed through the fight scene. I didn't tell Carlisle the layout of the scene, describing instead my mental landscape when I watched it.

"Please tell me how you looked, son… I mean the future you." Carlisle stared at his pen as if it had gotten to his hand by mistake and put it in the pocket of his white coat. I felt ashamed at that, knowing he was probably tired from dealing with the patients and had been looking forward to a relaxed evening with Esmée. Instead he was forced to listen to his son's awkward tale.

I described what I could about the Edward of the vision, how he had faced Demetri and fought him, together with Jacob.

My father interrupted me. "Edward, let me point out that-"

Carlisle fumbled for words; his uncharacteristic pause told me he might be remembering an unpleasant episode from his stay with the Volturi.

"I know Aro's mind quite well. You fought Demetri and he didn't order the other members of the Volturi to attack you."

Carlisle put his elbows on the desk, leaning forward. "That tells me he wasn't that interested in Jacob's death. I think Demetri acted precipitously. There were divisions within the Volturi and Aro wanted to see how things went before he pronounced his judgment."

I rushed through the latter part of the vision.

Carlisle fixed his gaze on the window. Night had fallen, but he hadn't turned on the light since neither of us was particularly inconvenienced by its lack. Our keen vision allowed us to see perfectly well, a predator feature I sometimes hated but now seemed useful.

"Let me assure you I appreciate your honesty, Edward." My father opened a drawer and took out a small leather book. I noticed that it was dog-eared; the pages - what I could see of them - were yellowed and torn.

"You shouldn't be ashamed of your feelings, your orientation… if that is one of the conclusions you draw from your vision." Carlisle's approval eased my mind considerably. Despite knowing my father perfectly well, I still yearned to hear him say that he accepted me, no matter what.

"I've grown accustomed to people's changing mores. What is unacceptable one day becomes the norm the next century and vice versa. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Edward."

Carlisle tapped the book, opening it at random and reading the page in the darkness. "I'm interested in the vision. You told me Alice said it was like seeing ghosts on an ancient TV set."

My father smiled wryly; in his thoughts he was fondly recalling our dumbfounded expressions when we saw our first TV show.

"After I left the Volturi I wandered across Europe. I think it was around 1840, at any rate before the final revolution in France, when I read about the curious case of the man who walked around the horses."

I lifted my eyebrow inquiringly, wondering what that had to do with anything. I tried to read my father's mind, but he was carefully thinking about nothing in particular. Finally I sighed in frustration. "And?"

"The diplomat was at an inn. He walked around the horses of his carriage but he didn't reach the other side. He vanished in plain daylight, in front of numerous witnesses." Carlisle sighed wistfully.

He read from the book. "He was Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat who vanished in Prussia, I guess during the Napoleonic wars."

Carlisle frowned, fingering the brittle page as if afraid it would break. "Yes, it was in 1809."

I crossed my legs in the darkness, sighing in frustration. "I don't see how that applies to my situation, father."

Carlisle put the book back on the drawer and closed it softly. He leaned towards me and whispered, "I've often wondered what happened to that man. How was it possible for him to vanish in broad daylight? Could it be that he just entered another realm?"

"What do you mean, Carlisle?"

"Alice's premonitions. Sometimes they happen just the way she sees them and sometimes they can be changed and never occur at all. Maybe for every outcome that we change, another realm is created." Carlisle stood up and went to the door, turning on the lights.

"You mean like an alternate reality? That man who disappeared, he went to a parallel world?" I wrestled with the notion and gave up after a while. All those years studying the same subjects in high school had dulled my capacity for wonder.

"Exactly, son. You told me about Alice's telling remark. She felt she was watching ghosts, she saw three different versions of Jacob, two at home and one abroad. This leads me to the conclusion that she saw three different worlds." Carlisle went to the window and touched the windowpane. He was debating whether to open it and let the fresh air inside but he changed his mind when he heard the sound of thunder in the distance.

Carlisle turned and looked at me intently. "Could it be that the reason your sister can suddenly see Jacob in her visions is because the Jake she sees comes from a realm different than ours? An alternate reality, as you so quaintly put it?"

oOoOo

"Edward, you're a million miles away." Bella sighed exasperatedly, fidgeting with the belt around her waist. She was fumbling, trying to open the buckle.

I had been in a distracted state of mind, mulling in my mind the implications of Carlisle's words. I was afraid I hadn't been paying much attention to Bella. She appeared to be mad because her friend Jessica was snubbing her, spreading false rumors about our relationship. Frankly I was relieved that Jessica didn't seem as obsessed with me as she'd been. It had been a chore to witness the girl's fantasies about me.

I bent down and opened Bella's security belt with a swift motion of my hand. I was so intent on her and the worrisome vision that I didn't notice the shadow approaching the door of the Volvo; the maelstrom of the wolf's emotions hit me when it was too late.

The door was yanked violently open with the force that only a shapeshifter could muster. Someone grabbed my arm and jerked me out of the car. I went unresistingly because I felt the man's churning thoughts. I didn't want to make a spectacle in the parking lot.

"What's this I hear about Bella and you, fucking leech?" Black's voice was rough with anger.

The mutt growled at me, "Is it true what Embry told me, you slept with Bella?"

Jacob let go of my arm and took a step back. He was shirtless as usual and my gaze inevitably drifted down from his handsome face to his toned chest, lingering a moment in his erect nipples before continuing downward, gliding through his chiseled abs. I noticed that he was wearing tight jeans that hugged his slim hips perfectly.

I couldn't help but smirk when I read Jacob's mind. It seemed that despite his words, he appeared to resent the thought that it was Bella I had supposedly slept with, not him. But I didn't weigh the impact my gesture would have on Jacob.

He pushed my chest violently. If I'd been a mortal, I would have fallen. Instead I just felt a tingling from Jacob's hand.

"Stop it, you two!" Bella stepped between us, glaring at Jacob. "I haven't slept with my fiancé… not that it is any concern of yours, Jake!"

Bella raised her arm, intent on hitting Jacob but I stopped her, knowing she would only hurt her hand.

"You haven't?" Jacob frowned cutely, stepping back. He crossed his arms and his pectorals bulged. "But Embry said--"

"Whatever your nosy friend said, he probably heard it from Jessica. I swear that girl's very jealous of me and Edward," huffed Bella.

She glared at Jacob, hefting her school bag as if debating whether to hit him with it. "Are you going to believe that bitch or me, Jacob Black? Don't you trust me?"

Jacob ruffled his short hair and essayed a smile. "Sure, sure, Bells. I'm... sorry, kay?"

I didn't pay too much attention to the mutt's words; instead I delved into his mind. There was something decidedly different, a strange echo that I hadn't noted before in Jacob. Could it be that Carlisle was right and this was another version of the Quileute?

Chapter two: The meadow